Time being what it is

[vr_trakowski]

I watched Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility today; I've seen it before, but not recently.  I hadn't so much as forgotten that Hugh Laurie was in it as that he simply wasn't on my radar at the time. 

It's been so long since I read the book that I don't know how accurate the movie is, but aside from completely failing to show any attraction in Marianne to Colonel Brandon, it's fun.  Though I did keep thinking that Elinor and Colonel Brandon would be a better match. 

It's sobering to reflect, though, that for women of that class there was nothing but marriage.  It's their defining thought.  I don't know enough history to know if the same was true for the other classes, but it gives me a nasty feeling.  I know I'm very lucky to live in this time, and place, where for me marriage never became more than a "maybe someday, if the opportunity arises".  It was never a necessity.  

Of course, the idea of being married to someone I do not love, or to someone who does not love me, is one of my personal nightmares.  But that's rather beside the point. 

Comments

[katrinb.livejournal.com]

"And ironically enough, Jane Austin herself never DID get married."

Though the Addison's disease that probably killed her was possibly exacerbated by stress induced by financial difficulties...again, demonstrating how very much women need an option to support ourselves without a husband. (And I love my husband, and admittedly am dependent on him financially at the moment - but only because the job market sucks right now for everyone, not just women.)

S&S is probably Austen's least romantic novel. I read a study of it once which suggested that Marianne's marriage to Col. Brandon was a defeat, not a victory - that she had been annihilated, essentially, as herself and made into someone quite different, more conventional and conventionally successful, but basically dead emotionally. I don't know that I believe that - Brandon was too worthy a man to be made happy with an emotionally dead wife, and Austen wouldn't have rewarded him so poorly (she generally did reward her good characters well). And I do think that Marianne eventually comes to realize his worth, and his real heroism, compared with Willoughby's poetic but false appeal. But both marriages in this novel are more of an emotional compromise than the sunny joyous unmixed blessing of the Bingley and Darcy marriages in P&P.

And I do think Edward is probably the least convincing Austen hero ever. Though in the modern era, we're more likely to blame him for not dumping Lucy than to praise him - while in his own society, dumping her, whether she and he really loved each other anymore or ever had or not, would've been the action of a graceless, selfish cad. He does deserve more credit for that than he generally gets. But he's still a wimp, and rather dull. Brandon is a much more heroic guy, really, and once Marianne realizes that, I can really see her genuinely loving him with all her force.

[vr-trakowski.livejournal.com]

I guess I need to re-read the book--I probably have a copy around here somewhere. :D I can't remember what the characters were really like in the book itself, I was just going off the chemistry (or lack thereof) on the screen.

IIRC, though, Emma Thompson wanted Hugh Grant for the role in part so she'd get to kiss him--and then it never showed up on screen. I think I saw a screencap of it, though. :P

ETA: Better still!